The old saying lightning never strikes twice is supposed to be reassuring. Well. You had this one stroke of really bad, bizarre luck. But that means the odds of it ever happening again must be zero, right?

Wrong.

Very, very wrong.

Lightning strikes the Earth about 50 times a second. It can strike twice or even three times or hundreds of times in the same place. Take the Empire State Building for example. Its in New York and gets hit about 25 times a year.

And as for people? Just be really glad you're not Roy Sullivan. Poor Roy was a park ranger at Shenandoah National Park. He was struck by lightning seven times in his lifetime.

Here's a real buzz kill for you. In the US, more people are killed by lightning than tornadoes and hurricanes put together. Seriously.

For more stories like this, check us out every day at smithsonian.com.

Critical thinking challenge: If lightning strikes the earth many times per second, why don't we see lightning more often?